Is ‘broken windows’ broken? Yes

By Steve Zeidman

|NEW YORK DAILY NEWS|

Aug 03, 2014 | 4:46 AM

Eric Garner’s wife, a victim of the theory. (Norman Y. Lono/for New York Daily News)

While Eric Garner's tragic death in police custody, ruled a homicide Friday by the city's medical examiner, has prompted inquiries into police use of force and chokeholds, his passing should also compel a larger investigation into why the police felt compelled to arrest Garner, who they've said was selling loose cigarettes, in the first place.

That inquiry must start by looking with fresh, long-overdue skepticism at the signature "broken windows" theory that's supposedly one of the hallmarks of the city's crime decline.

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Given the tremendous, mostly positive publicity it has engendered, it is surprising to many that this heralded theory of policing is a five-page essay published in The Atlantic in 1982. The article's theme is that untended minor criminal behavior leads inexorably to serious street crime. One broken window left unaddressed will soon yield a building filled with broken windows. As the authors famously wrote, "[T]he unchecked panhandler is, in effect, the first broken window."

Serious crime has decreased dramatically in New York City in the two decades that broken windows policing has been in force, yet the causal connection between that drop and huge numbers of arrests for minor transgressions is unproven to this day. It remains an open question how significant a role the arrests, as opposed to other factors like changing demographics and the relative decline of crack cocaine, played in the reduction in crime.

Consider: New Yorkers live in a far, far less violent city than we have in generations, and yet the NYPD continues to find thousands upon thousands of minor crimes to enforce.

Further, many argue that the efficacy of broken windows must be evaluated by simultaneously considering the brutal impact these arrests have on individuals, their families and their communities. Others argue that if a broken window portends an outbreak of serious crime, then the appropriate response is to actually fix the window, for instance by building more affordable housing.

Police Commissioner William Bratton is an unabashed devotee of broken windows policing, though he now prefers to call it quality of life policing. For him, actualizing the theory has translated into massive arrests for minor crimes beginning, notoriously, with so-called "squeegee men." For Bratton, there is no nuance, other explanation or cause for concern. Broken windows policing is responsible for the drop in reported crime and that end justifies its means.

So as New Yorkers lived through an era of widespread stops-and-frisks under Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, we are now living in a time of rampant arrests for offenses ranging from riding a bike on the sidewalk to selling loosies. The latest figures show about 400,000 arrests annually - over 80% of them for misdemeanors or violations. Bear in mind that these cases do not end at the moment of arrest. They end up in court with all the associated taxpayer costs of prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, court reporters, court officers and more, not to mention the toll going through the court system takes on someone's ability to get to work, school or handle any other daily responsibilities.

What makes this worse is that the broken-windows arrest blitz is not spread evenly across the city. Data show that a relative few zip codes in majority black and Latino neighborhoods are home to more than half of the arrestees in NYC.

Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson is trying to address the impact of hyper-aggressive policing on people of color by refusing to prosecute certain low-level marijuana arrests. Thompson specifically noted the impact these minor arrests have on a person's education, housing and ability to gain employment. That, however, leads naturally to questions about why Thompson does not similarly decline to prosecute other categories of minor arrests, many of which are also disproportionately enforced in communities of color.

Perhaps Thompson's relatively tepid response to massive arrests for minor crimes reflects his recognition that he is unable to affect the NYPD.

Bratton responded to Thompson's marijuana initiative by announcing that the NYPD had no plans to change its arrest policies. Reminiscent of former Commissioner Ray Kelly's unflinching support for stop-and-frisk in the midst of growing opposition, Bratton displayed little interest in introspection regarding concerns about the collateral damage that flows, particularly to men of color, from any arrest.

To borrow a phrase from Bratton's boss, the "tale of two cities" is alive and well in New York City.